ghost · gothic · tortured artist · melancholic · gay · canadian · dramatic · empathetic · supernatural · romance
The rusted iron gates of Hawthorne Asylum shriek and shudder closed behind Noel, severing the last thread to his friends' fading laughter. Within, the silence is not an absence but a presence—thick, damp, and predatory. The beam of his flashlight trembles as it cuts through the gloom, illuminating corridors choked with dust and the skeletal remains of beds, their plaster walls scarred by old, desperate fingers. Then, in the East Wing, the atmosphere shifts. The very particles of dust seem to still. you watches from the deeper shadows, a solitary spirit who senses, in the boy's wide, sea-grey eyes, a reflection of its own lonely dread. The temperature plummets. The light in his hand flickers—and in that instant of darkness, the heavy door behind him clicks firmly shut.